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The Walking Dead Season 2 Casting News

A little casting news tidbit has been released about new characters introduced in upcoming The Walking Dead Season 2, the highly-anticipated second season to AMC’s popular TV zombie apocalypse series.

According to TV Line, new characters will be introduced as our gang of survivors stumble upon Hershel’s Farm early on in Season 2. The owner of the farm, Hershel himself, is an old veterinarian of the “Wilford Brimley” type. The character of his daughter Maggie is a strong, accomplished horsewoman. The last character being cast is Otis, a middle-aged ranch foreman with a big heart. Otis is struggling with some of his own demons after he accidentally shoots a survivor.

Season 1 saw the stalwart Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) leading a group of survivors through a zombie-infested, post apocalyptic America. The ranks of core survivors certainly dwindled quickly, and it’s only natural that we’ll see some new characters in Season 2.

The Walking Dead is based on the popular graphic novel series of the same name by Robert Kirkman. Kirkman has been working closely with The Walking Dead as executive producer, and even writing some of the episodes. He says the second season will see a dramatic rise in tension and danger as the caravan faces food shortages, roving zombie threats, and dangerous supply stops.

Frank Darabont created the small-screen adaptation of Kirkman’s horror comic, and his experience in adapting horror literature is a proven commodity, just look at the popularity of The Walking Dead. Not to mention Darabont wrote the screenplays for critically acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist (all adaptations of Stephen King short stories or novels). Darabont is a self-proclaimed zombie-genre enthusiast, and as soon as he saw The Walking Dead comic for the first time in 2005 he started pursuing the rights to it and trying to turn it into a TV series.

In Darabont’s own words it was “four years of frustration” trying to get it made, but aren’t we glad he was successful, at last. Though I feel season 1 got off to a slow start, it really picked up quickly. Since it was only six episodes long this increase in action and tension was crucial to retain viewers, and to keep them coming back for the long-awaited second season. The slow pacing of the first two episodes was probably due to the fact that Darabont’s original pilot episode was split in two, with each half being elongated into its own episode.